Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (53 page)

"I
cannot
convey
the
sense
of
abominable
desolation
that
hung over
the
world.
The
red
eastern
sky,
the
northward
blackness,
the
salt Dead
Sea,
the
stony
beach
crawling
with
these
foul,
slow-stirring monsters,
the
uniform
poisonous-looking
green
of
the
lichenous plants,
the
thin
air
that
hurts
one's
lungs;
all
contributed
to
an
appalling
effect.
I
moved
on
a
hundred
years,
and
there
was
the
same red
sun—a
little
larger,
a
little
duller—the
same
dying
sea,
the
same chill
air,
and
the
same
crowd
of
earthly
Crustacea
creeping
in
and out
among
the
green
weed
and
the
red
rocks.
And
in
the
westward sky
I
saw
a
curved
pale
line
like
a
vast
new
moon.

"So
I
travelled,
stopping
ever
and
again,
in
great
strides
of
a
thousand
years
or
more,
drawn
on
by
the
mystery
of
the
earth's
fate,
.watching
with
a
strange
fascination
the
sun
grow
larger
and
duller
in
the westward
sky,
and
the
life
of
the
old
earth
ebb
away.
At
last,
more than
thirty
million
years
hence,
the
huge
red-hot
dome
of
the
sun
had come
to
obscure
nearly
a
tenth
part
of
the
darkling
heavens.
Then I
stopped
once
more,
for
the
crawling
multitude
of
crabs
had
disappeared,
and
the
red
beach,
save
for
its
livid
green
liverworts
and lichens,
seemed
lifeless.
And
now
it
was
flecked
with
white.
A
bitter cold
assailed
me.
Rare
white
flakes
ever
and
again
came
eddying down.
To
the
north-eastward,
the
glare
of
snow
lay
under
the
starlight
of
the
sable
sky,
and
I
could
see
an
undulating
crest
of
hillocks pinkish
white.
There
were
fringes
of
ice
along
the
sea
margin,
with drifting
masses
further
out;
but
the
main
expanse
of
that
salt
ocean, all
bloody
under
the
eternal
sunset,
was
still
unfrozen.

"I
looked
about
me
to
see
if
any
traces
of
animal
life
remained.
A certain
indefinable
apprehension
still
kept
me
in
the
saddle
of
the machine.
But
I
saw
nothing
moving,
in
earth
or
sky
or
sea.
The
green slime
on
the
rocks
alone
testified
that
life
was
not
extinct.
A
shallow ■.a
i
id-bank
had
appeared
in
the
sea
and
the
water
had
receded
from
I he
beach.
I
fancied
I
saw
some
black
object
flopping
about
upon
I h
is
bank,
but
it
became
motionless
as
I
looked
at
it,
and
I
judged
I
hat
my
eye
had
been
deceived,
and
that
the
black
object
was
merely a
rock.
The
stars
in
the
sky
were
intensely
bright
and
seemed
to
me
to twinkle
very
little.

"Suddenly
I
noticed
that
the
circular
westward
outline
of
the
sun had
changed;
that
a
concavity,
a
bay,
had
appeared
in
the
curve.
I saw
this
grow
larger.
For
a
minute
perhaps
I
stared
aghast
at
this blackness
that
was
creeping
over
the
day,
and
then
I
realised
that an
eclipse
was
beginning.
Either
the
moon
or
the
planet
Mercury was
passing
across
the
sun's
disk.
Naturally,
at
first
I
took
it
to
be
I
he
moon,
but
there
is
much
to
incline
me
to
believe
that
what
I really
saw
was
the
transit
of
an
inner
planet
passing
very
near
to
the earth.